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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 307, 27 December 1881, Page 1

A story is told of Van Ambarglj, the great lion tamer, now dead. On .n_ occasion, while in a bar room, he was asked how he «ot liia wonderful power ovar animals. BCe said: "Ifc is by showing them that I'm not the least afraid of them. I'll give you an .sample of the power cf my eye." Pointing to a loutish fellow who was sitting' near by be said: " You see that fellow? Ke'_ a regular clown. I'll make him ccma across the room to me and I won't say a word to him.'' Sitting down, he fixed his keen steady eye on tbe man. Presently the fellow straightened himself gradually, got ap, acd came slowly across to tha tion tamer. When he got close enough he drew back and struck Van Amburgb a tremendous blow under tbe chin, knocking bim clean over the chair, with the remark: "You'll stare at me like that again, won't you?" A writer in Vanity Fair says :— " I have read a curious letter from an adventurous young fellow who went to the Cape to see some fighting. He got his heart's desire and seems to have enjoyed being fired at very much indeed. When there was no chance of engaging in more homicide he struck away np.th on horseback. During his journey the following pleasing reflections occurred tohiai: — ' Since this Beer scandal the Dutchmen treat an Englishman like a dog. I have travelled right through the Free States, right through to Griqulaud West. I will tell you from observation wbat a Boer is. There is a lot of false sympathy got up for them at home... A Boer is a hay, lanky, bilious-

-1 lboking, dirty, mean, treacherous scoundrel. I : have been refused a drink of water by one of them. These are the people tbat Gladstone humiliated us before I could tell you instances of things that occurred during the Transvaal war that would make your blood boil. Sold I We are sold. I have seen Englishmen deny their country, and I have blushed for my country myself. To think that we made terms with fellows who fired on woudded ! Those same rascals haul d down the English flag ia Pretoria and trampled it into the mud. They plucked English prisoners by the beard and spat in their faces. They insulted English women. These are facts.' The young man then grows so emphatic that ids remarks verge upon impnC priety. His letter struck me as being a remarkable example of the feeling of ordinary meu. I should not care to show Mr Gladstone all of his observations ; they are not complimentary to the revered statesman." A bitter quarrel has sprung up between Lord Bute and the Presbytery of Kothesay. More than a century ago the first Lord Bute built a chapel in the grounds of Mount Stewart, which for two generation* was used as the parish churcb. When the present Marquis became a Roman Catholic it was closed. I is now proposed to reopen the chapel as a Roman Catholic school, and the whole island is in a flame at the motion. T_eDraa_.-r.___ a re* _ltna.su & sect who belie.* dreams are revelations of divinity, and they 'hive an expert who pco-feaa_-_Q ioternca. the ca, - ■ >'-■? V : ■--!•-• .'{ii...!:.!'-* •■■.) ■■' ■ !...-.._